Abstract
The Nigerian State has become synonymous with herdsmen and community clashes, due principally to the fact that there is hardly any month that passes without the occurrence of this form of violence taking place, or any part of the country that has not witnessed the violent attacks of Herdsmen on most cases sleeping communities. The Herdsmen conflict is one of the worst forms of violence witnessed in Nigeria in recent years, having claimed over 5,000 lives, with about 7.5 Million people being directly affected and hundreds of thousand rendered homeless and properties worth billions of Naira destroyed. The paper examined the herdsmen attacks on communities who in most cases know nothing about the cause of these attacks, and the government efforts so far in addressing the menace. Exploratory research design, documentary sources and qualitative descriptive methods of data gathering and analysis were adopted. Anchoring our analysis on the relative deprivation theory, findings amongst others revealed that there is obvious denials of economic and security rights of the people which in turn encouraged the occurrence of these conflicts; and the government has shown apparent lack of political will to address the menace due to interest arising from certain quarters along ethnic and religious inclinations, as some arrested suspects were has not been prosecuted. The paper recommends that the government should rise up to the responsibility of providing security to lives and properties of the citizens and also create the enabling atmosphere for peace and integration to grow in Nigeria.